After carrying out at least 158 executions during 2015, the Saudis are getting a head start in the New Year, executing 47 people in a single day.

That number is important for two reasons.

Firstly, it serves to highlight the brutality of the theocratic system ruled by religious and social oppression.

Secondly, the relatively high number of people killed, even by Saudi standards, ironically mounts a futile attempt to prop up the monarchy in Riyadh.

By bundling up Al-Qaeda-linked extremists with critics of the regime – chief among them Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr – Saudi Arabia attempted to portray its most vocal domestic opponent as being equal to a terrorist.

Sheikh Nimr, who was a prominent Shia cleric, rights activist and scholar, spent most of his life preaching religious tolerance while calling for peaceful political change.

He was arrested in 2012 for taking part in anti-regime demonstrations in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province and sentenced to death in 2014.

His execution on Saturday coincided with a declaration by the Saudi-led coalition that it was ending an already insignificant ‘ceasefire’ in Yemen, where its bombing campaign has killed over 7,000 people since late March.

London-based Islamic scholar and political commentator Shabbir Hassanally thinks that, “everything is connected in the Middle East. The Saudis and their allies are on the back foot. This is especially true when it comes to Yemen, where Yemeni forces have pushed some forty kilometers into Saudi territory.”

For Hassanally and many regional experts, Saturday’s executions further highlight just how unstable and weak the Saudi monarchy has become in recent years as it increasingly and desperately resorts to sowing sectarian strife both at home and abroad.

The news of Sheikh Nimr’s death sent shockwaves through the region, drawing angry reactions and swift condemnation.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hossein Jaberi said that, “the Saudi government supports terrorists… while talking to its critics at home with the language of execution and suppression.”

In a statement, Lebanon’s resistance movement Hizbullah accused Riyadh of executing Sheikh Nimr because he “demanded the… rights of an oppressed people.”

The Deputy Head of the High Islamic Shiite Council in Lebanon, Abdel-Amir Qabalan, also weighed in, stating that “a royal pardon would have eased the sectarian and religious tension storming the Arab region.”

“It’s a crime against humanity that will see repercussions in the coming days,” Qabalan added.

Saudi-born Ali al Ahmad is the founder and director at the US-based Institute for Gulf Affairs, and he believes that the execution of Sheikh Nimr spells the end of the Saudi monarchy.

“This is the trigger of an upcoming cycle of violence that will consume Saudi Arabia and one that will take out the Saudi royal family,” Al Ahamd said.

“In Qatif people are emotional but they are also very calculating in their actions, so we can expect long term repercussions, not necessarily in the immediate term”, he added.

For its part, the monarchy in Riyadh will be hoping that the fallout from Sheikh Nimr’s execution deepens the Sunni-Shiite divide, allowing it to hold on to its self-declared role as protector of the Sunni Muslim population.

But the expected reaction, both inside and outside the kingdom, may just prove to be more than the monarchs in Riyadh are able to handle.

“A recent report by the IMF [International Monetary Fund] predicated that Saudi Arabia will be bankrupt by 2020 if it continues on its current course”, Hassnaly added.

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